Swedish Retailer Pirates the Pirate Bay Logo

A Swedish online clothing and tech retailer has assumed ownership of The Pirate Bay’s logo and plans to market the iconic pirate ship – with a cassette-tape image and crossbones — on USB sticks.

The company, Sandryds Handel, registered the logo with Sweden’s Patent and Registration Office. The Pirate Bay founders, who face a year in prison pending the outcome of their criminal appeal for facilitating copyright infringement, had never registered the mark and have always allowed it to be reproduced.

At least one of the four Pirate Bay founders didn’t think the changeover was amusing, saying the image should remain in the public domain. It’s worth noting that The Pirate Bay’s disdain for private ownership of intellectual property doesn’t extend to its domain name, which it agreed to sell for about $8 million, in a deal that now looks all but dead.